Evaluation of Newly Released Open Pollinated Tomato Varieties for Yield and Yield Components Performance in Northwestern Zone of Tigray

Abstract

Tomato is one of the most important horticultural cash crops in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. However, tomato production and productivity is limited by several factors such as disease and pests, lack of improved varieties and poor agronomic practice. Therefore, field experiment was conducted in 2017 and 2018 irrigation season to select and identify the best and high yielder tomato varieties. Seven improved Open Pollinated Variety namely; Gelilama, Mersa, Sirinka-I, Woyno, Tekeze-1, Melkashola and Melkasalsa were tested for their yield and yield performance. Significant differences were observed among the varieties across locations. The current findings showed that the highest marketable yield was obtained from Gelilama (55.58 t ha-1) & (49.59 t ha-1) followed by Melkasalsa (49.42 & 45.81 t ha-1) in Tselemti and M/zana woreda’s respectively. Based on the current study Gelilama and Melkasalsa varieties had given higher yield in both locations. Therefore, Gelilama and Melkasalsa varieties should be recommended for demonstration and scale-up in the study areas.